Bleak Books

I love bleak books. Novels where only sad things happen, and then they get more miserable. Not the weepy kind of fiction where you know the characters will overcome their troubles at the end of the book, or grisly horror, just pretty relentless grimness. A few days ago Lissa Evans author of Crooked Heart wrote her top 10 bleak books and inspired me to do the same. These aren’t necessarily my favourite books ever, just my favourite really unhappy ones. You can look for our lists on Twitter using #bleakbooks, but here’s mine below.

And if anyone else loves bleak books too, what have I missed (plenty, I’m sure)? If this inspires you to write your own list, I’d love to see it, and will update this post and link to yours. So ready for a bit of a cry?

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Father and son trudge through destroyed USA looking for food and trying to save people from cellars.

Legend of a Suicide by David Vann. In the main story two people go to an Alaskan island. One gets angry and destroys the radio. Only one survives.

Independent People by Halldor Laxness. An Icelandic farmer buys some cursed land, and struggles to keep alive in the harsh winters.

Blindness by Jose Saramago. Nearly the whole world goes blind. In a terrible ‘hospital’ the men gang up on the women. This kind of ends well, but it feels like an afterthought.

Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi. Suicidal woman takes her two children to the seaside, and not for ice creams.

Stoner by John Williams. Sad man has undistinguished career, unhappy marriage and poor relationship with his daughter.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. Three children live alone after their mother has died; what will they use the spare concrete for?

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. Yoli has a death-wish, just like her father. Can her sister keep her alive?

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Never watch the film of this book in a public cinema when eight and a half months pregnant, as I did.

Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner. Sad Edith rejects a proposal of marriage in a sad hotel by a sad lake.

I too like to wallow in bleakness, although perhaps I should opt for more ‘feel good novels’, as my library keeps helpfully suggesting. I find David Peace very bleak in general – and ‘Tokyo Year Zero’ in particular. Practically all of Richard Yates, especially ‘Revolutionary Road’. Finally, ‘Death in Venice’ is creepily brilliant in its sombre bleakness.

I love Halldor Laxness, Independent People is brilliant. It’s hard to think of books which are solely bleak, but I love The Wall by Marlen Haushofer, and anything by Jean Rhys, and Buriel Rites by Hannah Kent. All great, but sad reads.

I’m a total wuss when it comes to bleakness! There was a thriller I read a few years ago – Alex, it was French though I can’t right now think of the author’s name unfortunately – and while I enjoyed a lot of it, it was just so unrelentingly dark that I felt like sitting down and weeping every few pages!

I think I can take (and even sort of enjoy) bleak but something…
Jean Rhys: bleak but so so stylish in every sense.
Hardy’s Jude: bleak but dramatically shocking. Came home from the pub aged 18 to see the children’s demise in a televised version and remember feeling my temperature plummet.
But Stoner I just found bleak. Perhaps I missed something.

Claire, interesting because I like that type of book and have read a good number of those listed. Suggest The Drought (and the not quite so good, although my son preferred it, The Drowned World) by JG Ballard. Or do they fall into a different category of Dystopian novels? Not sure which category Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid’s Tale would fall into.

I haven’t read any JG Ballard. Perhaps I should because I like dystopian, and aren’t they always bleak? I don’t see why they couldn’t go in both categories. And so glad you and your wife enjoyed Our Endless Numbered Days!

That’s my kind of reading list in some ways. I always prefer tragic operas and plays to the the comedies. They are usually so much more complex and fulfilling. Most of all I love the photo at the head of this post!

I'm a writer and an artist. I have written four novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange, and Unsettled Ground (to be published in 2021). Click 'Books' in the top menu to find out more.